A female Danbury High School student took to social media to vent her frustrations over the lack of heat.

"@MayorMark there's ice hanging from the clay buckets.... Can you turn on the heat in A-Wing (A309)," @janexx3 Tweeted.

Boughton replied, "@janexx3 No heat until trick or treat."

Multiple students tweeted back to Boughton, who is both running for re-election and exploring a run for governor in 2014, that they were freezing.

"Mayor Mark Boughton has established himself as the modern day Marie Antoinette candidate in the race for governor," James Hallinan, a spokesman for the Connecticut Democratic Party, said in a statement. "Students without heat pleaded with the mayor to get the heat turned on so they could concentrate on their studies, but Mayor Mark Boughton essentially said, `let them eat cake.'

Boughton said his Twitter banter was all in good fun and that the heat at Danbury High School was turned on Oct. 15. He did acknowledge that a boiler had malfunctioned and that the city was working to fix the problem.

"Must be a very, very slow news cycle up at Democratic headquarters," Boughton told Hearst Connecticut Newspapers. "If they know anything about my relationship here with students, they know we're having a good time. It's just part of the repartee that we have."

Boughton, a former school teacher, missed an opportunity to school Democrats on French history, however.

The consensus among many historians is that Marie Antoinette never said, "Let them eat cake."

A run for Walker?

He's more policy wonk than politician.

But the visibility of David Walker at GOP events in Connecticut is on the upswing, with the former U.S. comptroller general under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush making cameos at gubernatorial contender Tom Foley's soft launch and then a state party fundraising dinner within the past month and a half.

Now there is chatter in Republican circles that Walker, one of the loudest critics of federal spending levels and founder of the now-shuttered fiscal policy think tank called the Comeback America Initiative, is positioning himself for a run for statewide office and would be open to joining the party's eventual nominee for governor as his or her running mate.

"There have been some discussions about whether or not I should consider that," Walker told Hearst Connecticut Newspaper Monday regarding a run for statewide office. "I have not made any judgment. As of the present time, I don't have any plans to run."

Walker, 62, who resides in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport in a home previously owned by Christopher Shays, expects to make a final decision on his political future in early 2014.

In September, Walker turned out the lights at the Comeback America Initiative with the release of its final report. He cited a long-standing commitment to spend more time with his family.

Did the comeback fall short? Some contend it has. Walker bristled at the premise that his comeback went out with a whimper.

"It was a dumb thing to say, which is typically what happens when you're angry and you try to say something," Nancy DiNardo, the state Democratic chairwoman, said in a statement to Hearst.

DiNardo made the controversial remark in response to former Bridgeport Mayor John Fabrizi crossing party lines to endorse Republican Tim Herbst, the first selectman in DiNardo's hometown of Trumbull and thorn in the side of Democrats.

"It came out wrong, and I'm sorry for it," DiNardo said. "I think most people in politics are good and decent people who believe deeply in public service. It was dumb of me to suggest otherwise."

Southern comfort?

A well-heeled group of GOP boosters extended some Southern hospitality to U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on Sunday night at the Belle Haven Club in Greenwich, helping the 28-year incumbent and fourth-most senior Republican in his caucus raise money for his 2014 re-election bid.

McConnell, 71, is facing a primary challenge from the political right in the form of Louisville businessman Matt Bevin, who has the backing of a number of tea party-affiliated groups and the Senate Conservatives Fund.

A source tells Hearst that some 70 people attended the $2,600-a-head reception for McConnell, including several members of his family who live in Greenwich.

Blumenthal's popularity with women voters proved key to his victory over Republican Linda McMahon in the 2010 Senate race, when females broke 60 to 40 percent for the longtime Democratic state attorney general.

"Across the country, state legislatures are enacting at an unprecedented pace anti-choice legislation, and it is critical that we work together to turn back these efforts," Blumenthal said in a statement.

"Even in the wake of small victories in the Texas and Oklahoma courts, I believe we need a new approach to complement the work being done by litigators--an approach that is proactive and aggressive -- seizing the initiative, rather than reacting defensively to this new onslaught of attacks on women's health care and reproductive rights."